PONDERING

Joel Weishaus

Around 300 million years ago our ancestor Tiktaalik roseae emerged from primeval waters, slithered across muddy earth, and began an evolution toward a world in which "humanity poetically dwells."(2) Around 50,000 years ago, our ancestors drew images and blew colors onto subterranean walls flickering with shadows, and on terranean rocks above, recreating animals they knew, or imagined, as symbols and signs, adding handprints as signatures of I Was Here.(3) Around 2,500 years ago our ancestors thought deeply and came up with Philosophy: the love of wisdom, to which the restless human mind added ethics, mathematics, science, etc., subsuming its original inspiration. However, a few of these philosophers were poets whose "bright tatters of wisdomcast / over gray welter and spume should at any rate yield / a few visions and reflections."(4) "This pond was made deep and pure for a symbol."(5) Two famous ponds in Literary History are Henry Thoreau's Walden Pond, and Matsuo Basho's: Old pond / frog leaps in / plop! (6) While Thoreau's pond has become a tourist destination, Basho's pond remains a koan, a conundrum to ponder upon. And then there's Orpheus, whose decapitated head sang its way down the River Hebrus to Lesbos, "the island of poets," where his Oracle continues to ponder our deepest questions through the words of contemporary philosopher poets. Near the pond is a stand of old growth trees, ingeniously twisted vines, and a ring of flowers nurturing their fragrance, Motor vehicles containing children on their way to a questionable education speed past, fouling the clear morning air. A couple walks past holding hands, while their dog is busy sniffing his world into his sensitive nose. Juxtaposed to the poems are digital paintings that are not the subject of themselves. As our genes drift between organisms, their memes drift between works of art.   1. Matthew Johnson, Senior Planner / Community Development. City of Forest Grove OR. 2. Martin Heidegger quoting Friedrich Hölderlin. 3. Alison George, "The Cave Art Conundrum." New Scientist, Volume 251, Issue 3345, July 2021. 4. Robert Bringhurst. From, "Herakleitos." 5. H.D. Thoreau, Waden. (1854) 6. Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizo no oto. Note: Pondering is designed to be viewed on a 13" or larger screen.     TITLES / NOTES (LINKS)   On A Cold Autumn Dawning Sweet Scent Of Autumn Shadows On A Parallel Road To The River When Earth Was Young From A Secluded Lake Unlike Walden And Its Famous Hermit This Old Pond Dreams It's Dancing Like A Pond That Can't Be As The Sun Rises The Shadows The Pond Stretches Into The Night Even Though It Knows Quacking In His Scarlet Cap And Gossamer Grass Wears The Crystals Every Pond Has Dreamed When We Walked On The Shards Scanning Water Trudging Through A Dense Fog Slips Over The Pond The Pond Flows In Around And Out On The Mountain's Lips A God When We Find That In The Beginning In His Amsterdam Studio Rembrandt What Have You Birthed A Second Time The Mountain Lifts As Memory In The Morning’s Sward Gray Sky Wingless Flight Rising In Starlight As His Singing Head Floated Down Some Walls Of Paleolithic Caves A Slice Of Sunshine Slides Its Way   NOTES     © Joel Weishaus 2026